Copyhold tenure for a number of lives – generally for three lives – was by far the commonest form of tenure in Wiltshire and Dorset during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially throughout the chalkland districts, dominated by great estates, where manorial control remained strong. Except for the large farms created out of former demesne lands, leases for a term of years did not become common until the eighteenth century. In 1634 Samuel Stillingfleet, steward for the earl of Salisbury’s large estate based on Cranborne, in Dorset, could write that ‘heere with us lives are esteemed better than lease’; whereas Thomas Davis, writing in 1794, remarked that in Wiltshire most of the farms formerly let by copyhold tenure for lives had been converted to leasehold for years.Footnote 1 An analysis of forty-nine seventeenth-century manorial surveys from Dorset shows that 89 per cent of tenants held their land or property by copyhold tenure, while in surveys of seventeen manors belonging to the earl of Pembroke in Wiltshire in 1631–2 more than 80 per cent of the tenants were copyholders.Footnote 2

Copyhold tenure meant that the rights of both landlords and tenants were subject to traditional practice ‘according to the custom of the manor’. Writing in 1630 the judge and former attorney-general, Sir Edward Coke, in his book The Complete Copyholder, could declare that, as long as a copyholder fulfilled the terms of his tenure and the custom of the manor, ‘then let the Lord frown, the Copyholder cares not, knowing himself safe, and not within any danger … Time hath dealt very favourably with Copyholders in divers respects’.Footnote 3 Copyhold rents generally remained low, and landlords depended on entry fines and heriots (duties paid on the death of any tenant) for the bulk of their income. Manorial custom had the force of law within each manor, and was the guiding principle in the decisions of manorial courts.

These customs, which from time to time were recorded by stewards in manorial custumals, varied greatly from one manor to another. This variation was well expressed during a manorial survey of Iwerne Courtney, Dorset, in 1553:

The variation in the customs of different manors had profound consequences for tenants, affecting their rights to transfer their tenements, the rents, fines and heriots payable to the lord, access to common grazing, fuel, timber, stone and other natural resources, and the rights accorded to widows. On the manors where customary tenants enjoyed beneficial rights of transfer and inheritance, as well as low rents and fixed entry fines and heriots, they had the wealth and security to erect substantial dwellings and farm buildings and to invest in agricultural improvements, such as water meadows, new crops, improved rotations and better livestock management. Tenants with less beneficial customs were accordingly far less prosperous or confident in investing in buildings or introducing improvements.

For the transfer or surrender of tenancies, most manorial customs insisted that this could only be done openly in the manorial court before the steward and the assembled tenants. At Downton, Wiltshire, in 1682 the tenants objected strongly when the steward, John Snow, persuaded a few men to go with him to an inn in nearby Salisbury to witness the transfer of a tenement to a man who lay ill in bed. They had to certify that the sick man had followed the ancient ceremony of grasping a rod or staff and swearing fealty to the lord of the manor. One of the men later complained about this violation of manorial custom and the fact that the steward ‘will allwaies bee fiddling in something for his private gaine and incroaching to break our Customs as much as it lieth in him to doe’.Footnote 5 In contrast, at Corsham, Wiltshire, in 1687, it was laid down as custom that copyholders could make surrenders and receive grants before the steward or bailiff at any time so long as the transfers were later recorded in open court.Footnote 6

At Yetminster, Dorset, the beneficial custom allowed tenants to transfer their holdings by the ceremony of handing over a verge, staff, mote, rush or straw and making a declaration in the presence of witnesses. In 1604 William Stroude, a copyholder of Yetminster, was in a house in Exeter when he delivered a mote and made a declaration before witnesses surrendering his tenement for the use of his son. At the next manorial court the steward consulted the homage to be certain that ‘the said Surrender of William Stroude were absolutely good by the Custome of this Mannor’. After deliberation, the homage confirmed that it was ‘allowable by the Custom of the said Mannor’.Footnote 7 At Yetminster the tenants had another beneficial custom. This allowed any tenant to surrender his estate, but to retain or ‘except’ a specified part of the dwelling house and of the land for himself and his wife for the remainder of their lives. This useful custom was popular, and the court rolls that survive for 1568–1626 include forty-five ‘excepts’.Footnote 8 The excepts give precise details of the house, buildings and lands involved, as in the following example of a surrender made in the manorial court by Robert Elford in 1573. He transferred the tenement to his son, Alexander Elford:

Yetminster was a possession of the prebends of Salisbury Cathedral, and enjoyed other beneficial customs. The tenants had favourable rights of inheritance, low rents and fines, and access to stone and timber for their houses and barns. Accordingly, they were able to build on their tenements with confidence that they could hand the results of their work on to their chosen successors. In consequence, Yetminster has some of the finest seventeenth- and eighteenth-century stone-built farmhouses and barns in the county.Footnote 10

On the two royal manors of Gillingham and Portland, both in Dorset, the tenants were copyholders of inheritance and could bequeath their holdings by will, the new tenant merely registering the transfer at the next manorial court.Footnote 11 On the Isle of Portland there was also another method of transfer which was known as ‘Church Gift’. A manorial survey of 1650 describes this as follows: ‘By Custom allso any Tennant Houlding his Lands and Tenements of the said Mannor, may at the parish Church of Portland in the presence of two or more witnesses surrender his Estate or any part thereof unto any person whatsoever.’Footnote 12

The custom of gavelkind, or partible inheritance, also persisted on the Isle of Portland and was described in 1650 in the following terms: ‘If any Tennant die without a will, leaving Sonnes behind him, all the Tenements and Lands which he died seized of within the said Mannor are to be equally divided amongst them, or for want of Sonnes to the daughters, saving to the wife and Relict of the party deceased the Third part of the same during her life.’Footnote 13

On some holdings within the large manor of Downton, Wiltshire, the custom known as ‘borough English’ was observed whereby the property passed to the youngest son or daughter.Footnote 14

The tenants of the royal manor of Portland enjoyed and carefully preserved some of the most beneficial customs in Dorset with low rents, certain entry fines and generous rights of common and stone quarrying.Footnote 15 Similar beneficial customs were also accorded to the tenants on the ecclesiastical manors of Netherbury and Beaminster, both in Dorset. On these manors the custom decreed that entry fines had to be ‘reasonable’, and, in case of dispute, a jury of the tenants was to assess the appropriate entry fine. Such rights were jealously guarded, and when, during the 1620s, Richard Corbett, a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral who was lord of the manor of Beaminster, contested this custom and complained that ‘the Tennants are not to be thought indifferent in their owne case’, he was strongly resisted by the copyholders who accused him of trying to: ‘innovate a new and strange custome to the Mannor … for privat lucre and gain and the great prejudice of the customary tenants and their ancient Customs’. The tenants were joined in their protest by Dame Margaret Strode, widow, of nearby Parham. As well as a large freehold estate, she also held copyhold land in the manor, and with her help the tenants raised the large sum necessary to fight their case in the Court of Chancery. In this, as in other cases, the Court upheld the ancient customs of the manor.Footnote 16 As a consequence of the beneficial tenures enjoyed by tenants at Netherbury and Beaminster, the houses and farm buildings are particularly fine.

A similarly beneficial custom over entry fines existed on the Duchy of Cornwall manor of Mere, Wiltshire, where a survey of 1567 recorded that fines were ‘not to be enhanced to any great or grievous sum as the Tennant shall be not able to pay’. Here also any dispute was subject to the adjudication of ‘the most honest and substantial men of the Tennants … whether they be reasonable’. Likewise, on the royal manor of Gillingham, Dorset, entry fines were fixed at the rate of two years’ rent.Footnote 17

By contrast the copyhold tenants on most manors were obliged to pay entry fines at the market rate. Typical were the customs of Langton Herring, Dorset, which recorded in 1650 that tenants could ‘renew theyr estates at such reasonable prices as others will give for the same’. Similarly, at Ryme Intrinseca, Dorset, it was established in 1650 that copyholders could ‘renew their Estates to themselves and the next of their Blood, giving to the Lord thereof within one penny as another will give for the same’.Footnote 18

Manorial custom depended essentially upon long usage; in disputes or in the compiling of written custumals the testimony of elderly inhabitants was thus of great importance. For example, at Norton Bavant, Wiltshire, on the River Wylye a dispute during the early seventeenth century over tenants’ rights of fishing in the river was settled by an appeal to the oldest inhabitants, ‘and after it was proved by the tenants to be an Ancient Custom it was suffered and contynewed’.Footnote 19 Some surveyors were impatient of such procedures. As part of a large-scale survey of Duchy of Cornwall manors during the early seventeenth century, John Norden wrote scornfully of the testimony ‘of ignorant tenants that spake by tradition and not by evidence’, and complained that the tenants ‘claime customes many and strange, how they maie be thoughte consonante to reason … would be too tedious to be here inserted’.Footnote 20 Most elderly tenants, however, seem to have taken the responsibility of reporting under oath on their ancient customs very seriously. For example, at Amesbury, Wiltshire, in 1604 when the tenants were uncertain on some aspects of their custom they appealed to the lord of the manor, Sir Edward Seymour, to settle the matter: ‘not being fully Resolved nor agreed upon our Custome because we are somewhat ignorante of yt, we differe yt unto your worshipes Judgement, hoping to be aided therein’.Footnote 21

The importance accorded to ancient tradition and long use is demonstrated by a dispute which occurred in 1721 over the manorial customs of the two large manors of Bradford on Avon and Tisbury, both in Wiltshire. During the Middle Ages they had belonged to the nuns of Shaftesbury, Dorset, and, following the suppression of the abbey in 1539, had become part of the endowment of the newly created cathedral of Bristol. When a dispute arose in 1721 between the Dean and Chapter of Bristol and the tenants of these two manors, the Chapter Clerk, George Roberts, copied the long list of the customs from ‘an old Register or Ledger Book’ which had applied to all the manors belonging to Shaftesbury Abbey. The book had survived among the records of the Arundell family of Wardour Castle, Wiltshire. This lengthy document was in the form of a series of imaginary cases before a manorial court and involved such fictitious characters as ‘John Attstyle and Alice his wife’, ‘John Attstyle and Elizabeth his wife’, ‘John Attstyle and Robert his son’. The landowners are referred to as ‘the Lady’ and ‘the Ladies’, a reminder that the abbess and most of the nuns of the wealthy abbey of Shaftesbury came from aristocratic or well-connected gentry families. It was accepted by both parties in the dispute in 1721 that these ancient customs still retained the force of law within the manors of Bradford on Avon and Tisbury.Footnote 22

The difficulties that could occur when a manor was dismembered and ancient customs no longer enforced by the manorial court can be observed at Shrewton, Wiltshire, in the years 1596–9. The lord of the manor was Sir Henry Brounker and when he died in 1596 his widow, Martha, and his son, Henry, sold the manor in portions to tenants and others, and the manorial court ceased to function. This created a crisis in the management of the common arable fields and pastures, and over the provision of hay for the common sheep-flock during the winter. By 1599 when the sheep were dying in the fields for want of fodder, the vicar, Nicholas Barlowe, called a meeting of the township at which a detailed voluntary agreement was reached for the regulation of common husbandry.Footnote 23

On a few manors the insistence upon manorial custom meant the survival of labour services, the payment of part of rents in kind and other historical curiosities. A survey of Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, in 1590 recorded the obligation of copyhold tenants to perform various services on the demesne lands, including specified days at ploughing, sowing, harvest and sheep shearing.Footnote 24 As well as money rental, the lord of the manor of Broad Chalke, the earl of Pembroke, also received wheat, barley, oats, geese, fowls, pigeons, rabbits and pepper.Footnote 25 A manorial survey of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, in 1634 showed that some copyholders were required to provide ‘one days work at haymaking in Brodemeade … according to the custom of the said Mannor of Mayden Bradley’.Footnote 26 Rents in work or kind continued to be paid on many manors. For example, at Litton Cheney, Dorset, in 1639 each tenant paid, in addition to money rent, half a day’s weeding, half a day at hay harvest and one day at corn harvest on the demesne farm, as well as supplying the lord with four capons each year.Footnote 27 At Wootton Fitzpaine, Dorset, in 1636 the manorial rental included twenty-one capons, fourteen hens, one duck and one harvest day.Footnote 28 The surveyor at Long Bredy, Dorset, in 1615 was apparently too confused by the additional rental in wild fowl and merely noted that ‘the tenants beside their rent are to pay rent wigions [widgeons], some 2 some 4 some more’.Footnote 29

The copyhold tenants on most manors were obliged by custom to have their corn ground at the manorial mill. At Wilton, Wiltshire, in 1632 the tenant holding the manorial mill was entitled to grind all the corn of the copyholders of Washerne, Netherhampton, Fugglestone and Quidhampton and to charge the traditional fee.Footnote 30 Relations between millers and their customers were often difficult and many customs decreed that the miller was to bring his toll dish for inspection at each meeting of the manorial court. At Mere, Wiltshire, in 1567 the tenants had to use the manorial mill and the miller had to attend every manorial court with his toll dish ‘and be ready to answer all men who have any matter against him, either for taking of excessive Toll or otherwise’.Footnote 31 The obligations of tenants and miller are set out in the manorial court book of Stratton, Dorset, in 1611. Every copyholder was obliged to have his corn ground at the manorial mill, and the miller was told to ‘use the said Tennants well both with the Toll and grinding of their said Corne upon payne to lose for every offence iis’. These requirements were enforced, and the court book includes occasional references to fines levied on tenants and the miller.Footnote 32

At Piddlehinton, Dorset, the miller could keep one twenty-fourth of all the corn and malt he ground, and all the copyholders were required to work each year on the Thursday in Whitsun week at cleaning and scouring the mill pond.Footnote 33 At Chisbury, Wiltshire, in 1602, custom allowed the miller to take fish from the mill pond and to keep there two swans for breeding and their cygnets.Footnote 34 Mills were a highly profitable manorial perquisite. A survey of Kingston Lacy, Dorset, on behalf of the Crown in 1552 revealed that ‘the mill called Whitemills’ was let for 26s 8d per annum, whereas the average rental of the twenty-seven copyhold tenements on the manor was 12s.Footnote 35 In 1697 the newly built mill at Standlynch, Wiltshire, on the Avon south of Salisbury, which was described as ‘well customed’, was let for twenty-one years at an annual rent of £44.Footnote 36

On a few manors the custumals recorded the ancient obligations of landlords to provide ale and food for seasonal festivities. At Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, in 1631, copyhold tenants were required to render work service on the demesne farm in ploughing, harrowing, washing and shearing sheep, mowing and carrying hay and corn. In return they were entitled to bread and cheese on the feast of St Thomas (21 December), meat and drink at corn harvest, and ‘for cutting and making the Grasse in Long Meade being 4 akers and a half … one Ram and eleven Gallons of Beere to be devided amoungst them’.Footnote 37 The wives of cottagers at Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, were to gather up the fleeces at sheep shearing and were to have ‘meate and drink and a pound of Loakes [locks of wool]’ for their labour.Footnote 38 At Great Wishford and Barford St Martin, both in Wiltshire, tenants had numerous well-defined rights of common pasture, pannage for pigs, collecting firewood, and cutting boughs in Grovely Forest on May Day. These rights were established and preserved in an annual ceremony of processing to Salisbury Cathedral. In addition, the tenants were entitled to half a fat buck for each parish annually on Whit Sunday ‘to make merry withal amongst the Neighbours’.Footnote 39

Regularly recorded in manorial custumals is the right of the lord of the manor to ‘deodands’; that is, the right to seize any object or beast that was the cause of the death of any tenant. An example of this right being exercised occurred at Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire, in 1653: ‘William Keate, the sonne of Nicholas Keate of Fovant, was unfortunately killed … by a horse of his father’s which dragged him upp and downe until he died, and the horse is due to the Lord of this Mannor’.Footnote 40 Some manorial lords also exercised the right of granting probate of wills, and, for example, the manorial court books of Upavon, Stanley, Collingbourne Ducis and Berwick St James, all in Wiltshire, all contain several references to wills proved in the manor courts.Footnote 41

Manorial customs varied greatly in the freedom allowed to tenants to sublet their holdings. On most manors tenements could only be let without licence from the manorial court for a year and a day. In some places, however, tenants were not so restricted or could easily obtain licences. At Winsham and Purtington, in the clay vales of west Dorset, the custom set down in 1560 and repeated in 1607 stated that: ‘Every tenant in possession dwelling within this Manor may have under-tenants without the Lord’s licence’.Footnote 42 Tenants and landlords alike generally had an interest in preventing newcomers establishing themselves by subletting tenements. Tenants were concerned lest such people remained to become a burden on the poor rates, while landlords’ objections were explained in an entry in the court rolls of La Lee, Dorset, in 1626. A copyhold tenant, William Humber, was fined 40s for having sublet his holding without licence, and the entry in the court rolls explained that: ‘The mayne safeguard to be expected in this is for the Tennant to give Bonde to the Lord for his executors to paye a sum certain in money for a heriott at the time of his death. For if a tenant die, having noe goods of his owne upon the Tennement at the tyme of his death, the Lord is barr’d of his heriott.’Footnote 43

An example of a licence granted to overcome this problem is found in the court rolls of Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire, for October 1653: ‘Memorandum, that William Oake hath with the lycence of the Lord taken his Mother’s tenement, and to give her five pounds a yeare for the same, or otherwise to give her meate and drinke and cloathes att her choyse, and to paye all the taxes, and hath undertaken to paye fortie shillings for a heriott after the death of his Mother.’Footnote 44

John Norden, in his survey of Cerne Abbas, Dorset, in 1617, described the difficulty and chaos that could arise from uncontrolled subletting. Norden commented that: ‘They that Injoye the principall houses of the towne dwell from them and lett them to a masse of base people, meere mendicantes’. He added that one fine house had ‘neer a dozen lowsy people in it’.Footnote 45 At Mere, Wiltshire, Norden found a similar situation where manorial control had been relaxed. He complained that: ‘Such is the fruite of tolleration of abuses as time hath nowe wroughte in this Mannor a general immunitie and meerly usurped freedom’. Among many abuses, Norden remarked that tenants at Mere ‘lett and sett theire tenements soe manie yeares under coloure of one yeare and then a second, third, etc., pretendinge the same but for a yeare if it continue 20 yeares’.Footnote 46

Throughout the chalklands of Wiltshire and Dorset, most manors were part of one of the great estates that dominated the area. The lord of the manor was generally non-resident, and the tenants were much more closely involved with the manorial steward who acted as the landlord’s representative, presiding over manorial courts and upholding the lord’s interests. At Colerne, Stert and Alton Barnes, all in Wiltshire, all of which belonged to New College, Oxford, the manorial custom did not even permit the Warden to attend the manorial court, and only the steward could be present.Footnote 47 Some stewards enjoyed wide-ranging powers, were completely trusted by their respective employers and handled large sums of money in rents and fines on behalf of landlords. Examples include John Bennett of Motcombe, Dorset, who was steward on the widespread estates of the Arundell family of Wardour in 1663–76, John and Leonard Snow, stewards for the Ashe family estate at Downton, Wiltshire, in 1665–1727, who supervised the creation of extensive water meadows for their employer, and Thomas Greene, steward to Sir John Nicholas for the large estate around Gillingham, Dorset, in 1685–1700. These, and many other stewards, took full control of the interests of their employers, presiding over manorial courts, granting tenancies, collecting rents and regularly handling large sums of money. The powers exercised by stewards over copyhold tenants were, none the less, constrained by the customs of each manor. An example of complaints made against John Snow at Downton has already been given. It was the complaints of tenants at Mere, Wiltshire, around 1623, as well as the criticisms of the surveyor, John Norden, that led to the dismissal of Sir Carew Raleigh, brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, from his post as steward of the Duchy of Cornwall manor for taking bribes in return for demanding low entry fines.Footnote 48

Attempts by stewards and surveyors to compile manorial custumals and provide detailed accounts of individual holdings often provoked hostility among tenants, fearful of changes to their ancient customs. At Long Bredy, Dorset, in 1650, John Mitchell, who had leased the demesne lands, encouraged the tenants in their refusal to answer the surveyor’s questions ‘soe that Mitchell by himself and others hath done what in him lyeth to Darken and Hinder our Trust and Proceedings in the said mannor’.Footnote 49 At Admiston, Dorset, in 1684, the surveyor was greeted with ‘morose language’ and was told that he was greatly mistaken if he thought that he could ‘Fright the country with wax and parchment’.Footnote 50

An example of the difficult path that stewards had to tread between safeguarding the lord’s rights while observing the customs of each manor occurred on the earl of Salisbury’s estate at Cranborne, Dorset, in 1623. Richard Sherfield had been appointed as steward in 1620 and had begun an enthusiastic campaign to retrieve and maintain the earl’s rights, which the tenants had infringed, and to increase the earl’s profit from the estate. His actions provoked a storm of criticism from the tenants, some of whom complained to the earl at Hatfield. The earl was anxious to keep good relations and maintain his political influence in the district, and he appointed a commission of local gentlemen to inquire into Sherfield’s proceedings. They found nothing illegal, but reported that his actions were: ‘directly opposite to your truly noble disposition by pressing and enforcing such strict penalties and lawquirkes that he has justly drawne on him the hate and ill opinion of that parte of the country’. In spite of his efforts on the earl’s behalf, Sherfield was sacked from his post.Footnote 51

None the less, tenants could be subjected to considerable pressure from stewards and landowners to agree to the introduction of new customs such as enclosures, changes to common grazing rights and arable rotations, or to participate in manorial undertakings, such as the creation of water meadows. Tenants on the manor of Stour Provost, Dorset, which belonged to King’s College, Cambridge, were subjected to great pressure from the Provost, Dr Samuel Collyns, to agree to enclose the large area of common pasture in 1619–20. He claimed that after enclosure ‘it would yield much greater profit to all tenants and also to the Provost, Fellows and Scholars at King’s College’. Several tenants objected to the scheme, but were eventually obliged to give way to the fierce ‘solicitacon and entreaty’ of their landlord.Footnote 52 Similar pressure was exerted on the tenants of the royal estate at Motcombe, Dorset, to agree to the enclosure of part of the forest of Gillingham, Dorset, in 1627. This was later to lead to widespread rioting, but agreement of the tenants was secured at Motcombe by the royal commissioner who visited each tenant separately and persuaded them to sign their assent to the proposal. Few copyholders were as honest as William Hussey who later confessed that he had signed the agreement ‘that he might not be singular’.Footnote 53

Two tenants at the Hungerford manor of Rode, Wiltshire, who had second thoughts about the proposal for an enclosure there in 1619, received a threatening letter from the lord of the manor:

A rare example showing an attempt by a steward to change a manorial custom occurs in a long account of the evidence given during a dispute before the Court of Requests concerning the Duchy of Cornwall manor of Ryme Intrinseca, Dorset, in 1578. One witness, William Strode of nearby Chetnole, Dorset, stated that the manorial court of Ryme Intrinseca was traditionally held in his father’s house and that, while he had been on a visit to his parents and was sitting in their kitchen, he had heard the steward, Christopher Dodington, having urgent consultation with an elderly tenant in the hall and attempting to persuade him to support ‘various courses contrary to the ancient custom of the manor’. Meanwhile, the ‘homage’ or jury, a representative group of the oldest and most responsible tenants, was in the garden ‘consultinge about theire businesse’. When the manorial court began, the homage vehemently opposed the changes proposed by the steward, and their protests were eventually upheld by the Court of Requests.Footnote 55

On large estates where the steward was responsible for the oversight of numerous manors he depended on the homage to inform him at the manorial court of the death of any tenant who was named as one of the ‘lives’ for any copyhold tenement. Even so, it was difficult for a steward to maintain close and constant control, or to be alert to the subterfuge of calling two children in a family by the same Christian name. If one child who was named in a copyhold agreement died, it might be possible that the second child could be substituted without the steward’s knowledge, thus avoiding the payment of an entry fee or fine for inserting a new life. It was this possibility which underlay the statement by the homage at Stratford Tony, Wiltshire, in 1664 that: ‘Wee presente to our knowledge there was never any man that have two children Christened by one name whereby the Lord was or may be deprived of his right by the keepinge any tenement longer than hee ought to hold the same.’Footnote 56 It was to prevent the lord being defrauded by the substitution of one child for another that led to the entry in the seventeenth-century custumal of Purton, Wiltshire, forbidding tenants from leaving a space for a child’s name in the court rolls and in their copies. Likewise at Bremhill, Wiltshire, the custumal of 1612 declared that ‘if a man take a tenement for himself and his children but leave a space for them it is not good’.Footnote 57

The custumal of Chisbury, Wiltshire, in 1612, restricted the steward’s power to eject tenants for failure to observe minor regulations, and declared that tenants were not liable to forfeit estates ‘for every point of the Custome broken’, but only for willful waste, such as letting the buildings on their tenement fall down.Footnote 58

For harmony in small manorial communities it was important to avoid disturbers of the peace, sowers of discord and untrustworthy characters. This explains the unusual entry in the custumal of Enford, Wiltshire, in 1537, which said that: ‘Every Copyholder is to be of honest conversation or else to forfeit his holde’. The entry went on to cite the example of John Stapulhorne, in 1506, who, it was said, had forfeited his tenement ‘because he was not of honest conversation among his neighbours’.Footnote 59

In addition to the customs enshrined in manorial custumals, there were countless other local practices hallowed by long observance. Many were concerned with customary usage surrounding hay and corn harvests, and these disappeared with enclosure or when arable and meadow land ceased to be farmed in common. Since such traditions did not affect landlords or involve tenure, few of them are preserved in written records. An example of such a local custom occurs in a valuation of the manor of Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, in 1604:

Similar local custom and usage was often observed over the provision of bulls at a time when all the cattle belonging to copyhold tenants were pastured together for long periods of the year, often in the charge of a manorial cowherd. In many places the task of providing a bull, and sometimes also a boar, fell upon the local parson or upon the farmer or tenant of the former demesne farm. At Affpuddle, Dorset, this duty of the parish incumbent was formally recorded in the manorial custumal of 1611: ‘By our custombe we ar to have a bull and a bore of our Parson continually to serve our turns’.Footnote 61 Similar customs were recorded in the Glebe Terriers of Sturminster Marshall, Dorset, of 1613, and Winterbourne Abbas, Dorset, of 1634.Footnote 62 At Piddlehinton, Dorset, which was a possession of Eton College, the obligation to provide a bull fell upon the farmer of the demesne farm, while at Enford, Wiltshire, in 1689, the farm of Longstreet was said to provide a bull to go on the Cow Downe from 3 May to St Martinstide each year.Footnote 63 At Winterborne Monkton, Dorset, ‘an able bull for the use of the Dairy Cows of this mannor’ had to be provided annually by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, and was, quite improperly, paid for out of the poor rates, as was a dinner of beef, bread and beer for the homage at the manorial court. The court book of Winterborne Monkton also ordered that ‘if the Bull follows any Bullard Cow into any of the Tenants Backsides, He shall not be driven out or Molested till such Cow [be] Served, on pain of 1s 0d’.Footnote 64 At Ludgershall, Wiltshire, the Terrier of 1786 recorded the traditional obligation ‘for the parson to find a bull for the use of the parish from Whitsun to St Thomas day [21 December] yearly’. The incumbent of Stockton, Wiltshire, had the same obligation, while at Potterne, Wiltshire, in 1638 it was said that ‘the vicar ought to keep a boar’. The Terrier of Sutton Mandeville, Wiltshire, in the late sixteenth century, declared that ‘our custom is to have a sufficient and lawful bull and boar found by the parson for the service of the parish at all times; as also our custom is at the parson’s hands to have a sufficient drinking with bread and cheese to serve the whole parish on Easter Day’.Footnote 65

Local custom also prescribed the number of sheep and cattle that could be pastured on downland and common grazing land, although, to judge by the number of infringements reported to manorial courts, these numbers were frequently exceeded. In a dispute at Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire, in 1597, as to whether a piece of downland was common to all tenants, the surveyor argued that it was not common, since there was no record in the manorial court rolls of anyone being fined for over-stocking the land, ‘which would have been many times ere this yf they had any right of common there’.Footnote 66

Manorial custumals lay stress on the rights of widows to what is known as ‘free-bench’ or as ‘widows’ estate’. This meant that, on many manors, after the death of any copyholder, his widow could keep the tenement during her lifetime unless she remarried or was guilty of unchaste life. This was a matter of great importance to landlords, for a young widow could retain possession of a tenement for many years, thus depriving the lord of entry fines. Again, there was great variation in manorial customs. Some customs allowed the widow to keep a third part of the tenement. On the manor of Corton within the parish of Hilmarton, Wiltshire, a widow could not retain any of the lands granted to her late husband ‘unless she be speciallie named in the copye by graunt from the lorde’.Footnote 67 The custom of Amesbury, Wiltshire, allowed a widow to retain possession of a tenement ‘as well if she marry as if she marry not’.Footnote 68 Similarly at Bremhill, Wiltshire, a widow could marry and yet keep the estate of her first husband during her lifetime ‘tho’ she hath never soe many husbands’.Footnote 69 At Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, as in most manors, the custom was ‘yf anie widowe take a husband or commit fornication she shall presentlye forfeyt her widow’s estate’.Footnote 70 The more liberal custom at Christian Malford, Wiltshire, stated that: ‘Our Custom is that when a widow doth live unchaste that appertaineth unto the Ecclesiastical Court for that our Custom have not to do with it, but for her Living she shall Injoy it by Our Custom.’Footnote 71

The custom of Purton, Wiltshire, recognized a potential problem that might affect even a scrupulously chaste widow. It affirmed a widow’s right to ‘free-bench’ on her late husband’s estate, and the fact that the right was forfeit for immoral conduct, ‘if the incontinency be publiquely proved and known by the homage’. It added an important qualification, evidently as a result of experience: ‘Notwithstanding if any man shall for malice or other devilish intent say or report that he hath carnally knowne any wydowe, that shall not be sufficyent proof except it be as lawful as ecclesiastical law doth allow of.’Footnote 72

By the custom of most manors, if a tenant was convicted of a felony or if he committed suicide, his tenement was forfeit to the lord and the widow was deprived of her ‘free-bench’. At Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, however, the custumal of 1635 specifically stated that a widow was to retain the tenement even if her husband ‘do hang, drowne or otherwise shorten his life’.Footnote 73 It was the copy of the entry in the manorial court record which provided a tenant with title to the property he held, but the custumal at Christian Malford, Wiltshire, in 1614 stated that if ‘a tenant by misfortune Looseth his Copie yet shall he keep his Living’.Footnote 74

For landowners potentially the most exasperating and expensive feature of manorial custom relating to widows’ estate was if an elderly copyhold tenant, who was a widower, married a young woman shortly before his death. Provided she remained unmarried and chaste, she could keep the tenement out of the lord’s hands for many years. By this means, a widower who had been unable to afford a new entry fine to add fresh names to his copyhold, could make provision for the children of his first marriage by an agreement with a compliant young woman. She would have lifelong security and could agree to share the profits of the tenement with her stepchildren. The agricultural observers of the eighteenth century cite this possibility as one reason why landowners should make every endeavour to change their copyholds to leaseholds, which were subject to common law and not to manorial custom.Footnote 75 The evidence for such marriages is naturally difficult to find and only comes to light when an arrangement broke down and resulted in a legal dispute. Enough examples have, however, been found to suggest that the practice was more widespread than might be supposed.Footnote 76

In 1631, for example, Miles Cheney, a widower of Spetisbury, Dorset, who possessed a copyhold tenement worth £20 a year, married eighteen-year-old Anne Haysham, daughter of Richard Haysham, a tailor of Sturminster Marshall, Dorset. The bridegroom was said to have ‘buried his former wife and being unmarried and above one hundred years olde’. He died shortly after the marriage, and his motives would have remained hidden except that his granddaughter, Jane Cheney, alleged that she had been deprived of her share of the estate and began a suit in the Court of Requests at which the whole story was revealed.Footnote 77

Evidence for a similar marriage emerges from the churchwardens’ presentments for Chardstock, then in Dorset. In 1638 the churchwardens reported that an irregular marriage had taken place between a widower, Thomas Parris, and Mary Marshall. She was a young woman, while he was more than eighty years of age ‘lying in his bedd not able to stand or goe, wholye decayed in body and mynde, who died as ‘tis reported the day followinge’. He was a copyholder with a tenement worth £40 a year, and it is evident that the marriage was contracted in order to preserve the tenement for the benefit of the children from his first marriage, who were otherwise unprovided. The facts surrounding the marriage only came to light because of a subsequent dispute between the children and their father’s second wife.Footnote 78 Following the marriage, the vicar of Chardstock, John Pytt, wrote to the registrar of the ecclesiastical court in Salisbury to inform him that it had engendered much concern in the parish, and that Thomas Parris had ‘in his latter time become in discretion no better than a child’. The vicar added that the general opinion was that the marriage was ‘but a florish to colir out a pretended widowship to injoy his teniment’.Footnote 79

The second marriage of Thomas Wareham, of Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset, was for the purpose of keeping possession of his tenement worth £40 a year for his children rather than allowing it to go to his younger brother John, who had the right in reversion. In 1620 Thomas Wareham fell seriously ill ‘insomuch that in the Judgement of learned Phisicons there was no probability that he should recover agayne’. His children, therefore, urged him to remarry and found for him a willing young widow from Gillingham, in Dorset. She agreed that she would permit the eldest son, William Wareham, to farm the land and share the profits between herself and the other children after Thomas Wareham’s death. The plan broke down because marriage to a younger woman revived Thomas Wareham, who recovered his health and lived for another fifteen years. Unfortunately, his young wife was far from pleased at his recovery and refused to live with him. The whole story is revealed in complex court proceedings between the wife and Thomas Wareham’s children.Footnote 80

A marriage took place at Belchalwell, Dorset, on 15 April 1662 between Robert Frampton, an elderly copyholder, and Elizabeth, daughter of Elizabeth Vincent, relict of George Vincent, a tailor of Shaftesbury. The bride was barely twelve years old and the parson, Robert Moore, deposed that, before the marriage, he had attempted to dissuade her. But in spite of his efforts the bride had insisted and the marriage took place. In a subsequent court case over the estate all the witnesses agreed that the purpose of the marriage was that ‘if the said Robert Frampton should die the tenements would descend to the said Elizabeth according to the custom of the said manor’.Footnote 81

Many other such marriages must have worked as intended and remain hidden from view. One example, apparent only from a much later and unrelated legal dispute, involved John Sheppard, a widower with grown-up children, from Milton Abbas, Dorset. In 1664, when he was already very old, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Melmoth of Milborne St Andrew, Dorset. When he died soon after the wedding Elizabeth was still only fifteen years old. Twenty years later, in 1684, she was still enjoying her widow’s rights in the tenement and presumably continuing to honour any agreement she had made with her stepchildren.Footnote 82

An example of the exasperation of a landowner at the loss he incurred by the customary grant of ‘free-bench’ to a young widow comes from Kilmersdon, in east Somerset, in 1674. In a letter to his steward, the landowner, Gabriel Goodman, instructed him to grant no more copyholds but to insist on leases for term of years which would not be subject to custom of the manor. This was because of the abuse of widows’ estate, and he gives an example of a copyhold tenant named Maggs who was ‘86 or 88 years of age and a very Infirme man’ who, on his deathbed, had married his maidservant. ‘I say have not anything to doe with them except they turne their Coppys into Leasehold’.Footnote 83

A final example comes from the parish register of Broughton Gifford, Wiltshire, which records the marriage by licence of John Tomkins and Esther Stevens on 8 May 1729. He was about sixty-five years old and very ill, whereas she was about twenty-four. The marriage was undertaken in order to retain his copyhold estate for his children. The register records that: ‘He scarce ever saw her till they came to church to be married, nor spoke a word to her about his design to marry her but by another person, and it was agreed upon but the night before marriage, and they were married the next day and he died the next day after marriage. So that the woman was a maid, wife and widow within 24 hours’.Footnote 84 Under Tomkin’s will, proved 8 August 1729, Esther received a guinea, and the estate was divided among Tomkin’s children.Footnote 85 No doubt frustration over the costs of such manipulation of manorial custom was one reason why landlords and surveyors made every effort to change copyholds into leases that were not subject to ancient traditions. Even so the problem evidently continued during the eighteenth century; even in 1812 William Stevenson, the agricultural observer, wrote of the: ‘Frauds practised on the respective lords of the manors, by the customary tenants marrying in the last stage of decrepit old age to very young girls, by which, according to the custom of copyhold tenures in this country, the widow is entitled to her free bench on the husband’s copyhold.’Footnote 86

Although most copyholds had been replaced by leases by the late eighteenth century, copyhold remained as legal tenure until 1926 and the continuing importance of manorial custom is a crucial feature of Thomas Hardy’s novel, The Woodlanders, first published in 1887. Several village houses, including Giles Winterborne’s, would revert to the lady of the manor on the death of John South. As Winterborne’s servant, Robert Creedle, observed: ‘It is upon John South’s life that all Mr Winterborne’s houses hang. If so be South die and so make his decease, thereupon the law ordains that the houses fall without the least chance of saving ‘em into Her hands at the House. I told him so; but the words of the faithful be only as wind!’